so! I don't make no mistakes when I'm putting up trapezes. You'll find everything shipshape and proper. Going to have a big crowd to-day, I guess."

Joe looked at Harry Loper closely. The young man had never talked so much before, being, on the whole, rather close-mouthed. As the man passed Joe, after giving a pull on the last rope, the young magician became aware that Harry had been drinking—and something stronger than pink lemonade.

"I'm sorry about that!" mused Joe, as the rope rigger passed on. "If there's any place a man ought not to drink it's in a circus, and especially when he has to rig up high flying apparatus for others. It was drink that put Bill Carfax out of business. I didn't know Harry was that kind, I never noticed it before. I'm sorry. And I'll take extra precautions that my ropes won't slip. You can't trust a man who drinks."

Joe shook his head a bit sadly. He was thinking of Bill Carfax, and of the fact that he had had to discharge the man because, while under the influence of liquor, he had insulted Helen. Then Bill had tried to get revenge on Joe.

"I hope it doesn't turn out this way with Harry Loper," mused Joe, as he began climbing up a rope ladder that led to one of the high platforms. And as Harry had to do with the placing of this ladder, Joe tested it carefully before ascending.

"I don't want to fall and be laid up in the middle of the circus season," mused the young circus man, with a frown.

However, the ladder appeared to be perfectly secure, and as Joe went up, finally reaching the high platform, he felt a sense of exhilaration. Heights always affected him this way. He liked, more than anything else, to soar aloft on his Wings of Steel. And he liked the sensation when he leaped from one platform toward the swinging trapeze bar, aiming to grasp it in his hands and swing in a great arc to the other little elevated place, close under the top of the tent.

There was a thrill about it—a thrill not only to the performer but to the audience as well—and Joe could hear the gasps that went up from thousands of throats as he made his big swing.

But, for the time being, he gave his whole attention to the platform and its fastenings. The platforms were not very likely to slip, being caught on to the main tent poles, which themselves were well braced.

The real danger was in the long trapeze. Not only must the thin wire ropes of this be strong enough to hold Joe's weight, but an added pressure, caused by the momentum of his jump. And not only must the cables be strong, but there must be no defect in the wooden bar and in the place where the upper ends of the ropes were fastened to the top of the tent.

"Well, this platform is all right," remarked Joe, as he looked it over. "Now for the other and the trapeze."

He went down the rope ladder and climbed up another to the second platform. The show would not start for several hours yet, and the tent was filled with men putting in place the stage for Joe's magic tricks and other apparatus for various performers. The parade was just forming to proceed down town.

Joe found that Harry Loper had done his work well, at least as far as the platforms were concerned. They were firmly fastened. The one to which Joe leaped after his swing needed to be considerably stronger than the one from which he "took off."

The next act of the young circus performer was to climb up to the very top of the tent, and there to examine the fastenings of the trapeze ropes. He spent some time at this, having reached his high perch by a third rope ladder.

"I guess everything is all right," mused Joe. "Perhaps I did Harry an injustice. He might have taken some stimulant for a cold—they all got wet through the other night. But still he ought to be careful. He was a little too talkative for a man to give his whole attention to fastening a trapeze. But this seems to be all right. I'll do the big swing this afternoon and to-night, in addition to the box trick and the vanishing lady. Helen works exceedingly well in that."

Having seen that his aerial apparatus was all right, Joe next went to his tent where his magical appliances were kept. Many stage tricks depend for their success on special pieces of apparatus, and Joe's acts were no exception.

Joe saw that everything was in readiness for his sleight-of-hand work, and then examined his Box of Mystery. As this was a very special piece of apparatus, he was very careful about it. His ability to get out of it, once he was locked and roped in, depended on a delicate bit of mechanism, and the least hitch in this meant failure.

But a test showed that it was all right, and as by this time it was nearly the hour for the parade to come back and the preliminaries to begin, Joe went over to the circus office to see if any matters there needed his attention.

As he crossed the lot to where the "office" was set up in a small tent, the first horses of the returning parade came back on the circus grounds. Following was a mob of delighted small boys and not a few men.

"Looks as if we'd have a big crowd," said Joe to himself. "And it's a fine day for the show. We'll make money!"

He attended to some routine matters, and then the first of the afternoon audience began to arrive. As Joe had predicted, the crowd was a big one.

The young performer was in his dressing room, getting ready for the big swing, which he would perform before his mystery tricks, when Mr. Moyne, the circus treasurer, entered. There was a queer look on Mr. Moyne's face, and Joe could not help but notice it.

"What's worrying you?" asked Joe. "Doesn't this weather suit you, or isn't there a big enough crowd?"

"That's just it, Joe," was the unexpected answer. "There's too big a crowd. We have too many people at this show, and that's what is worrying me a whole lot!"

Joe Strong looked in surprise at the treasurer. What could Mr. Moyne mean?

CHAPTER IV

THE RUSTED WIRE

"Yes," went on the circus treasurer, as he rubbed his chin reflectively, "it's a curious state of affairs, and as you're so vitally interested I came to you at once. There's going to be trouble!"

"Trouble!" cried Joe with a laugh. "I can't see that, Mr. Moyne. You say there's a big crowd of people at our circus—too much of a crowd, in fact. I can't see anything wrong in that. It's just what we're always wanting—a big audience. Let 'em fill the tent, I say, and put out the 'Straw Seats Only' sign. Trouble! Why, I should say this was good luck!" and Joe hastened his preparations, for he wanted to go on with the big swing.

"Ordinarily," said Mr. Moyne, in the slow, precise way he had of speaking, brought about, perhaps, by his need of being exact in money matters, "a big crowd would be the very thing we should want. But this time we don't—not this kind of a crowd."

"What do you mean?" asked Joe, beginning to feel that it was more than a mere notion on the part of the treasurer that something was wrong. "Is it a rough crowd? Will there be a 'hey rube!' cry raised—a fight between our men and the mill hands?"

"Oh, no, nothing like that!" the treasurer hastened to assure Joe. "The whole thing is just this. There are a great many more people in the main top now than there are admission prices in the treasurer's cash box. The books don't balance, as it were."

"More people in the tent than have paid their way?" asked Joe. "Well, that always happens at a circus. Small boys will crawl in under the canvas in spite of clubs."

"Oh, it isn't a question of the small boys—I never worry about them," returned Mr. Moyne. "But there are about a thousand more persons at the performance which will soon begin than we have admission prices for. In other words there are a thousand persons occupying fifty cent seats that haven't paid their half dollar. It isn't the reserve chairs that are affected. We're all right there. But